Category Archives: General

Semiotic Analysis – What’s is an Ad?

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What is semiotics?  Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols. A semiotic analysis can be performed to anything which can be seen as signifying something.  Everything has meaning.  Sometimes its right in front of you.

Take this black and white photograph for example. What do you see?

Phillips
What do you see when you turn on the light?

Starting from the top: I see a narrow alley way between two buildings. Power lines shoot overhead. A bird is sitting on one wire. Windows are open facing each other. There is an air conditioning unit on one building and a tree at the top of one of the other. The only light comes from above.

At the very bottom is a flashlight, with its light shining upwards. Wait, what? This is an ad for a Philps flashlight. This gives the impression of the things you can see when you turn on the light. Only then do you realize that yes, it really is an owl and the scene is at night. That is not any type of bird, but an owl up there. Yes an owl.

Trust me.

 

In With the Old, Out With the New…or vice versa….

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What is New Media?

Before I answer (or attempt to answer that question) let us first pose the question… What is “new”?

According to Merriam-Webster, new simply means not old. That is fairly straight-forward. However, a more lengthy definition is “having recently come into existence.” But isn’t everything new a reincarnation of something old? My favorite definition of “new” is the beginning or repetition of a previous act or thing, as in a “new” day, or a “new” beginning.

New question. Since we kind of have a grip on what “new” means, what about the word “media”? Most definitions are in agreement with this one. Media is the plural form of medium. The word media, as we are familiar with it, was born in the world of advertising over 70 years ago. In more recent times we have attributed the word to mean the sources from where we receive our information (the phenomenon known as the NEWS MEDIA… dun dun da!)

So what is new media? Taking from the above meanings and expanding we can come up with a volley of different answers, each one right in their own way. However, Len Manovich describes new media to mean material that is distributed via a computer. Manovich reasons that texts made available to read on a computer screen or photographs on a CD-ROM or DVD that require a computer to be viewed are examples of new media. Paper copies of these items are not.

In The Language of New Media, Manovich gives his five principles of what new media needs to be. Those five principles are:

  1. Numerical representation – Media becomes programmable. All new media is composed of digital code.
  2. Modularity – Media can be represented as collections of many different ideas. Take a piece from this and put it with this and get this, something completely different.
  3. Automation – The first two principles enable new media to be automated. Photoshop is an example of a process that has been automated. Now you can tweak a stray line here, or add a cloud there, automatically.
  4. Variability – A perk of new media is that it is constantly changing. You can take a piece of information and modify it so that you get something different, but the original has the capacity to remain the same as it always was.
  5. Transcoding – a combination of the cultural layer and the computer layer of a program or idea. The examples of categories on the cultural layer are encyclopedia and a short story; story and plot; composition and point of view; mimesis and catharsis, comedy and tragedy. The examples of categories on the computer layer are process and packet (as in data packets transmitted through the network); sorting and matching; function and variable.

All five principles together are what creates and helps define “New Media”.

Last question, since we know what new media is what is not new media? Just because something is digital does not automatically mean that it is new. To answer this question, we have to go back to the simple definition of new… not old.  The best example of old media is a classic, leather-bound edition of Shakespere’s Romeo and Juliet, a manuscript written in the old style of paper and quill.

But as the saying goes, everything old is new again.  And there is no such thign as a new idea.  It is only a better idea.

 

Len Manovich, The Language of New Media, Chapter 1 – What is New Media? 

Shall We Play a Game?

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shall-we-play-a-game-300x55-1

Those 5 words sounded so cool when I was a 10. Especially when they were vocalized by a computer.

The movie “WarGames” came out in 1983. This was during a time when video arcades were prevalent and games like Galaga, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were king.

I’ve always been a bit of a gamer. I would make a game out of anything: cleaning the house, washing the car, doing dishes. I would wash dishes to music and see how many I could get done before the song ended. Walking down the street was an endless game of “step on a crack, break your mama’s back.” That was real fun when you had to walk across cobblestones – not.

Games are an important part of life. But what is “gamification”? The simplest explanation I found comes from Gabe Zicherman, CEO of Gamification Co. He states that gamification is the “process of engaging people and changing behavior with game design, loyalty and behavioral economics.”
http://www.gamification.co/

Companies often utilize gamification strategies to gain customer loyalty and entice new consumers to buy their products. Winn-Dixie has a “reward card” that a consumer can use to save money, not only in the stores but also at the gas pump. Often items have special “Fuel Perks” attached to them; like when you buy 2 boxes of General Mills cereal, you get an extra $.05 of per gallon of gas. You might not have needed cereal, but that fuel savings comes in handy. If you sign up for the Winn-Dixie Baby club, you get $.10 off per gallon on gas for every $25 you spend on baby products. That’s like $1.00 for a weeks’ worth of diapers (ok, so maybe not that much but you can begin to see the savings.) It is a game to see how much money you save. With gas upwards of $3.59 a gallon, if you can pay only $2.50, you win at the gas pump by using the Reward Card.

https://www.winndixie.com/SR/fuelperks/ExtraBonus.aspx
https://www.winndixie.com/SR/Reward%20Card/Default.aspx

In an article entitled “Top 10 Social Gamification Examples that will Literally Save the World”, Yukai Chou sums up what gamification means for society….What we’re seeing here is a complete shift from things we “should do” to things we “want to do.” But instead of shifting the tasks, we simply make what we should do fun. http://www.yukaichou.com/gamification-examples/top-10-gamification-examples-human-race/

A last word from “The Hunger Games”…

may-the-odds-ever-be-in-your-favor-282x300But also remember…

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My “Jacksonville” by way of Green Cove Springs.

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People always ask me where I live.  The easiest explanation is to say “Jacksonville.”  When I tell them I live in Green Cove Springs, I often get this confused look.  Kind of between “Where’s that?” and “Why?”

Where’s that is south of Orange Park.  No, not the Westside.  Further south.  And no, it’s not the same as Fleming Island.  You have to go through Orange Park and Middleburg to get there.  Green Cove is the epitome of a small town in the south.  It is very conservative and church paring lots are always full on Sundays.  We like it because it is quiet and away from it all.

I was recently given an assignment to complete a photo essay of what my Jacksonville looked like to me.  Since I only go to the “big city” for work, I wanted to show you some of what makes Green Cove Springs…home.

the main street
No Swimming!
Spring run
Welcome to GCS.
Historic Green Cove Springs County Courthouse
Through the window
Jailbreak
Home of the Blue Devils
Moo. we’re cows.
Green Cove…Cove.

A Meme by any other name…would still be a meme.

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One does not Simply...
One does not Simply…

What is a meme? According to http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/weirdwebculture/f/What-Is-an-Internet-Meme.htm

…a meme is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol or social idea.

Using a meme can help spread a message or idea instantaneously. This method of communication is critical to the world of digital media. Memes are often funny and have a tendency to be remembered in the future.  Each meme has a certain set of rules to follow.  But like all rules, sometimes they need to be broken.

One of my favorotes is the Joseph Ducreux meme. 

The Killers
The Killers

This has become popular for using well-known song lyrics or quotes in a style of verbose old English. The background is a self-portrait of Baron Ducreux himself.  (If you have any trouble with the lyrics on this one, click here.)

Last but not least…untitled